


Unnamed Mug Selling Establishment

by Elsinore_and_Inverness



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, I don’t know why I wrote this in second person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsinore_and_Inverness/pseuds/Elsinore_and_Inverness
Summary: It’s a lovely morning in Ankh-Morpork, and you are a horrible mug salesperson
Relationships: Boggis & Lord Downey (Discworld), Moist von Lipwig & Gladys, Rufus Drumknott & Havelock Vetinari, Susan Sto Helit & Death
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Unnamed Mug Selling Establishment

Someone had stolen a mug. You were hesitant to speculate about who it might have been but it was definitely the mug that had said GOOD MORNING, I SEE THE ASSASSINS HAVE PASSED THEIR EXAMS. The Greengrocers Guild might be coming after you for trying to get the punctuation to make sense. You made a note to check again if you were fully paid up with the Thieves Guild.

The ‘World’s Greatest Boss’ mug also managed to have the apostrophe in the right place which was a good thing because the young man—the only thing you could distinctly remember about him after he had left was that he was not very tall—who had bought one earlier looked distinctly uncomfortable reading many of your other print jobs. You wondered if he’d had to work for the Greengrocers Guild at some point. You has made a remark to the effect that you did not understand why there was a designated day celebrating bosses, but you were glad of the custom it brought, and this had been received somewhat coldly. Come to think of it, perhaps it was best not to assume that someone purchasing a mug that says ‘World’s Greatest Boss’ months away from the Merchants-Guild-designated Boss’s Day was not doing it out of a vague sense of social obligation. He had asked you if the mug-selling stand was your own and you has admitted that it was.

Your initial mug stock had been salvaged from one of the shopping malls that had grown out of a trolley that had grown out of a snow globe and Mr Dibbler had not cottoned on yet.

He had also said something about “a gift that’s also a compliment” and you had nearly fallen over yourself realizing that was the perfect tagline for your business. “Novelty Mugs: A Gift, That’s Also A Compliment.” You resolved to print those words onto a mug post-haste.

A harried-looking man, possibly even younger than the short one, although you could remember even less about what he looked like, came by holding a shard of broken pottery dripping with tea, marked up with permanent ink.

“Have you got another one of these, I dropped it, and I don’t want Gladys to know,” he said, all in a rush.

“Is Gladys the person who makes your tea?” you asked.

“Yes.”

“She’s going to notice. Even if you, er, annotate it the same way.”

“Please. I don’t know what else to do.”

“Have you considered telling the truth?”

The heel of the man’s hand connected with his forehead. “My wife is traveling. I’m not coping. Just sell me the mug. Thank you.”

The next customer was as memorable as the two men had been forgettable. Her hair was piled high on her head and she was dressed in black lace.

“My grandfather actually does drink tea,” she said intensely.

“That’s nice,” you said.

“So I wanted to get him another mug.”

“What does he like?”

“He likes cats.”

“That’s helpful.”

The young woman looked at the mugs at the front of the display. “What does ‘your image here’ mean?”

“What do you think it means?”

She looked at a dozen of the “Crazy Cat Lady” mugs. “I cannot tell if these are perpetuating internalized misogyny or operating outside of my personal sense of humor.”

You shrug. You can’t tell either. They were like that when you got them.

“I don’t know what ‘Dogs Cannot Operate An MRI Machine’ means,” she said, unconsciously correcting what the mug actually said, which was ‘Dogs Cannot Operate A MRI Machine’, “but I’ll take that one.”

You wrap the mug in paper and hand it to her.


End file.
